


Mere Absolution

by Mthaytr



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: BDSM, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, everybody's fulfilling psychological needs ok, kink as comfort, pain play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 15:59:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8584720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mthaytr/pseuds/Mthaytr
Summary: Ed has always been too reckless for his own good.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musings-of-an-introvert](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=musings-of-an-introvert).



> A commission for musings-of-an-introvert on Tumblr! They wanted h/c and bdsm porn and I did what I could to satisfy!
> 
> (find me also on tumblr at mthaytr.tumblr.com, with fic that never made it on to the AO3, and also anime geek shit :D)

“It was reckless, Fullmetal,” Roy growled, keeping Ed’s chin clasped hard between thumb and forefingers, “and it was stupid, and you know it. I don’t appreciate your casual attitude towards my orders — orders meant to keep you and the people around you _safe.”_ His black eyes glittered, and Ed found his mouth strangely dry; the difference in their heights meant that in order to meet his lover’s eyes, he had to bend his neck back to an uncomfortable degree. The position strained the stitches holding the gash on his shoulder closed, but he would not back down or look away. 

He didn’t really mean to speak, but his recklessness had always been his downfall.

“Like orders back from behind a desk could ever fucking keep up with the situation on the ground,” he snapped back, bristling like a cat. “You know I had to get that guy in jail.” His eyes flickered down, away, for a moment before returning to Mustang’s face, his scowl resolute. “I couldn’t just sit around and wait to see who his fuckin’ psychopath roulette was gonna land on next time. I know you’d love for me to sit on my ass and wait for backup, but he coulda killed somebody else before the fuckin’ _paperwork_ went through.”

A brief flash of — pity, sympathy, or something like it, _fuck —_ flashed across Mustang’s face then. He’d heard the accounts: probably had a fairly decent, if imperfect, idea of what Ed had had to see there, in this small town where murders had been racking up like parking tickets and Edward Elric still, _still_ couldn’t bring little girls back from the dead.

A bullet wound and a couple of nasty slices had been small prices to pay to see the man dragged, screaming, into the back of an armored van, hopefully to never see another free day in his fucking existence.

And then, to his surprise, Roy pulled him into a hug: it was brief, but bone-crushing, and Ed hissed at the sudden pressure on his wounds.

“I was worried,” the man murmured, loosening his grip, and Ed sent a scowling flush down to his shoes.

“You didn’t gotta be,” he groused, shifting from one foot to the other. “I had shit under control.”

A quick glance up when Roy pulled away informed him that one of the man’s eyebrows had scaled his forehead, the other pulled down to give him a kind of wry look.

“Your injuries and your extended hospital stay indicate otherwise.” He gave Ed’s uninjured shoulder one last squeeze before his hand departed to his breast pocket. 

Ed exhaled, cool relief surging down from his throat through every vein. The intensity of the sensation surprised him: he hadn’t realized how on-edge he had been until it hit like a tidal wave, sweeping him back from that precipice. He knew what was in those pockets: Roy’s gloves, familiar symbols of dominance, of power, of the strangely symbiotic hierarchy they played at when they needed it. 

He found, with a sudden, startling clarity, that he did, now — he wanted, _needed_ to be punished for his disobedience and, in so doing, to find some measure of forgiveness for his failures. To be taken out of his own head, to be reminded that he could do good, that he was cherished and valuable, despite — 

Despite everything. Despite himself.

“…I’m still mad at you, you know,” he added. This time his words weren’t dark or filled with threat. No — they were heavy, as promising as the slow withdrawal of white cloth and the red marks it bore.

“I know,” Edward replied, the tension in his muscles abating further, his tongue flickering out in an attempt to wet his lips. Then, thinking of the hug from earlier with an internal wince, he added: “Careful of my leg, kay?”

The bullet wound in his thigh was barely two weeks old, and though it had begun to heal below the thick stitches that held it closed, Ed really had no desire to test the strength of either the healing or the doctor’s handiwork.

“And your left arm, and your cheek,” Roy responded, pulling his gloves on casually; the way he deliberately avoided looking at Ed just broadcast his power, forcing a bone-deep shiver from him. He was almost beyond being surprised that Roy knew everything about him after all these years, even the locations of the knife wounds he’d sustained in his fight. “I know. But I think you deserve a good spanking, don’t you?”

Ed drew in a breath, swallowed; his lips parted, and when he finally managed words, he found his voice surprisingly steady.

“Yeah,” he said, the last of his tension beginning to seep out of his shoulders, down through his feet. “I disobeyed orders, like the fucking brat I am. Don’t you fuckin hate that?”

“Yes.” The man finally looked back over at Ed, his dark eyes catching shards of the light. “I do. It’s a bad habit that needs to be broken out of you. You’re a danger to yourself, Fullmetal. You’ve hurt what’s _mine,_ and that I will not stand for.”

_What’s mine_

And that should have repulsed him, should have set his defending and self-preserving instincts to snarling rejection — 

Instead, the soft, warm thrum of arousal began to unfurl low in his stomach: not much, not yet, but a start. A beginning.

A bare-toothed grin; Ed widened his stance. With Roy in front of him, so close that the man’s body heat suffused every inch of him, his memories — tiny, twisted bodies; blood and screams and the parents’ grieving faces — seemed far away, separate from him, like a nightmare that evaporates in the light of the sun. 

“ _Yours,_ Mustang?” he asked, eyes glinting. “Big words. But the follow-through is pretty fuckin critical. So how you gonna make ‘em true?” He cocked his head to the side, just slightly — just enough to make his smile slip sideways into a smirk, his bangs falling in his eyes. 

And Mustang, damn him — Mustang looked straight at him with eyes that _burned,_ and said:

“On the couch, Fullmetal.” The softness of his words did not mask the iron beneath, and the way he casually flicked his head to indicate the direction carried such a strange power that Ed didn’t even have time to think before he found himself obeying. “Kneel, on all fours.” The faint edge of humiliation that came part and parcel with this request only heightened his need. He bared his teeth with a curl of his lip, defiance bubbling up inside him.

“Can’t get over the fuckin dog metaphors, huh?” he snapped, exercising every last facet of his willpower to stand there, by the couch, and meet Roy’s eyes — which was, in retrospect, something of a mistake. The eyes that locked on his were almost — bored, as if Ed was no challenge at all and his antics only faintly amusing. An eyebrow arched as Roy snapped his second glove into place.

“Funny you say that,” he started, smooth as fucking chocolate. “It seems to me that the only person who keeps bringing up the dog thing is _you.”_ Ed flinched, hit by a sudden understanding of the truth of those words. Then, darker, with a hint of a smirk curling at the edge of the man’s mouth for the first time, Mustang purred: 

“If that’s what you’re looking for, I can certainly provide. Down, boy,” he said, and with a few quick strides had tangled his fist in Ed’s hair and shoved him, uninjured cheek first, onto the couch. 

He wasn’t sure if it was the words or the motion that sparked the reckless surge of heat to his loins, throbbing in waves out to every inch of his skin, but it didn’t much matter: he choked on a noise that was absolutely not a mewl, dug the tips of his fingers into the couch cushions just to keep himself grounded, to give him _form_ in this swell of madness. He scrambled to get his knees on the cushions, present himself as requested, his own breathing harsh in his ears.

“You are,” said Ed, breathing heavily, “one son of a bitch, do you know that?”

“Keep your mouth shut, puppy,” the general snapped, with a disdain to his tone that Ed could _feel_. Shivering, he whined, squirmed, his ass up in the air. 

Roy made quick work of his belt, shoved his leather pants down to bunch at his knees. 

“I’m very disappointed in you, you know,” he said, with a drawling, careless casualness that only sharpened the sense of his disdain.

Cold terror at the gates, Ed’s response thick and caught in his throat. A whine, almost breathless, like he’s forgotten how to use his lungs; flutters of air on bare skin. Roy’s hand collides, hot and heavy, with his ass; he swallows the pathetic noise he wants to make.

“But you can make it up to me,” the man purrs, just before placing a kiss right where his blow had landed moments before; every thread of his existence strains towards the man, his gut liquid, air like fire in his lungs.

He’s not hard yet, no, too wrapped up in thought and pain and memory to arrive there so quickly, but the way the General’s gloved finger trails almost teasingly down along the length of his cock is making a pretty good start. He shifts, putting all his weight on his metal arm, and hisses when Roy delivers a light slap to his balls without warning.

“What makes y’think —I want to,” he says, a growl in his words that he doesn’t feel: that calm, almost dreamlike state he reaches when they play together has begun to creep over him now, and emotions more complex than animal desire find only loose footholds in him, if any at all.

As he is, memories and — smells and the endless chorus of his own self-beratement are distant, quiet; the sting of his injuries is beyond the scope of his attention. And he, whatever act he puts on, is grateful, _oh_ yes he’s grateful — 

“Mm,” the general responds, below an angled smirk, curved and sharp and carefully wielded. “Because I know you, Fullmetal. I know how you crave my forgiveness and my praise.” A groan breaks from Ed’s lips before the hand even connects again with his ass; he hisses the noise back in when the sharp sting filters through him.

“You are one fuckin —” another blow, a shuddering breath out, and Ed buries his face in his arms “— cocky motherfucker, d’you know that?” he says, even as he pushes his hips back towards the assaulting hand.

“And _you_ think you’re invincible. But you’re _not,_ ” he growls; the next blow actually startles Ed with its intensity. “You’re human, like the rest of us.” Another strike, even harder; this time his groan sounds a bit more like a sob. “You bleed like the rest of us.” A third, harder still: Ed writhes, choking noises caught in his throat as his body instinctively jerks away from the source of the pain before his wants take over again, and he widens the stance of his knees as much as he can, pressing back once more.

“Look at me, Ed.” This time, the man’s voice is soft, but somehow raw-edged; Ed does as commanded, bites his lip as a thumb comes up to stroke his cheekbone. Then, harsher: “You bleed like the rest of us, and you can die like the rest of us, and you’re too important to me — hell, to the _country —_ to let that happen because of some reckless mistake. If you had died there, who would save the next town?” A pause. “What would _I_ do?”

The question hangs there in the air, and Ed can’t tell if his head is reeling from the mix of chemicals in his blood or from the shock of those words.

“So under no circumstances are you to do something so downright _reckless_ again. Wait for help. Go in with backup. _Don’t get yourself hurt like this again._ Do you understand me?”

Ed’s voice has apparently forgotten its purpose, because it stays stuck back with the lump that’s forming in his throat, and all he can manage is a mute nod.

“Good,” Roy says, his smile something like genuine now. His hand withdraws, and Ed takes that as permission to squeeze his eyes shut again. “Now that we’ve gotten that cleared up — how do you want it?” He gestures towards Edward’s bare ass to indicate his meaning. Ed takes in a shaky breath, works the words over in his mouth a few times as he convinces his throat to carry them once again.

“Hard,” he finally says, trying not to shake. “I just — don’t need to think. Right now,” he adds, rather stupidly, but judging by the cat-got-the-canary smirk that spreads across Roy’s face then, he doesn’t seem to particularly mind.

“As you wish,” purrs Roy, and some distant, foggy part of Ed’s brain is glad that the team knows better than to come in unannounced when Ed’s in the general’s office by now. Nobody else gets to see him like this — nobody but Roy, in these moments of private connection, of surrender — 

Another blow: Mustang’s taken his gloves off, apparently, because this slap of Roy’s palm _stings_ just the way Ed likes it. He muffles his low noise into the couch cushion, and Roy chuckles, placing the next strike differently for maximum impact. The next comes differently still, and soon the rhythmic beat of skin on skin has turned to a punishing flurry, to a maelstrom of blows. Skin burning, he sobs into his arms, holds on to each word Roy passes him — _yes, you’re being so good, beautiful — just like that, let it out for me — let me hear you_

Ed hardly even remembers who he is by the time he feels a hot wetness on his forearms — strange, unrecognized. It takes him far too long to realize, with a strange dawning euphoria, that the unfamiliar sensation is _his own tears._ When was the last time he cried? He can’t remember — but here, under Roy’s loving hand, he can’t even manage embarrassment at what he might otherwise consider a show of weakness.

Within moments, the man stops his barrage, murmurs praise and adoration as he bends down to dry the tears on Ed’s cheeks with the back of a hand. 

“How are you?” he asks, genuine concern in his dark eyes, and Ed manages a shaky smile back up, convinces his mouth to form words. 

“’M good. Great,” he adds, despite the dampness of his cheeks. “It’s — good. The cryin is. An’ everything else.” The warm feeling in his chest blossoms as Roy matches Ed’s smile with one of his own. “Don’ get all soppy on me now, Mustang,” he mumbles, still grinning. “You still gotta fuck me.”

“Oh, my sincerest apologies,” says Roy, his voice low again, a glint in his eye as dangerous as the edge to his smirk. “Are you the one giving the orders now?”

Ed shivers, profoundly and without regret.

“No — sir,” he murmurs, and hitches a gasp as the general runs a hand over Ed’s presented ass, the touch stinging on skin so recently abused.

“That’s right,” he replies, too fucking smug for his own good; suddenly he jerks the pants bunched around Ed’s knees down his calves and off, to leave them crumpled on the couch; then Ed’s on his back, arms sliding underneath his shoulders, his knees. Before he can really register what’s happening, those arms are lifting him — Ed has no strength left in his body, limp as a rag doll in Roy’s loving arms — and then he’s on his back on the desk, knees spread wide.

His breathing, slow and steady from the comfort of subspace, begins to speed up as fingers come down to tease at the soft skin below his aching erection; he’s burning, the pain of contact between skin and smooth wood a welcome backdrop to slick fingers probing him, lips on the ridges of his abdomen — a pause, to kiss all the way up the wound left there — then moving up his chest, to his neck, his chin — 

— and then, finally, his mouth: they seal theirs together at the very moment that Roy slides himself in, catches Ed’s moan with an eager tongue, hungry for every secret still contained within his lover’s body. 

A slow but relentless push: Ed can take it, has taken _more_ and _harder_ before, but still Roy is slow, gentle, pulling away from the meeting of their lips to press a kiss to the wound on Ed’s cheek; to lay more of the same on the gash across his shoulder, fluttering and insubstantial but _loving._ Gentle fingers worship the stitches on his thigh, counting each one as his hips begin to move in rhythm, taking Ed the way he was meant to be taken.

Ed comes with Roy’s fingers tight in his hair, with teeth scraping across the heavy beat of blood through his neck; the man pulls back for a moment to watch, in breathless silence, as Ed arches up — scrabbles at the wood with fingers that find no purchase — _releases_ with a primal cry and ecstasy carved across his face. 

There is barely enough consciousness left within Ed afterward to process anything that follows: distantly he notes Roy’s growl as the man buries himself once again in the crook of Ed’s neck and begins to _pound_ in, like he’s finally given up the last vestiges of his restraint.

“Ed,” he murmurs into the sweat below Ed’s jaw, his words and breathing growing ragged. “Oh, Ed. Ed, I —”

But if he had been intending to say something more, it’s lost to the sudden violence of his orgasm, to the groan that accompanies through clenched teeth. When black eyes finally open again to lock on Ed’s, he finds himself slipping into a huge smile that he knows must be dopey because Roy slowly mirrors it.

“I love you,” Roy says when he’s once again capable of speech, his voice rough and utterly affected: he withdraws, kisses Ed’s jaw, then his cheeks when they go red at the remark.

“I know.” Still blushing, Ed fixes his eyes on the corner of the room as Roy collapses beside him. “You too. Fucking dork,” he adds, and Roy laughs.

*

Wrapped up on the couch in a flannel blanket, newly clean and clothed, Edward Elric felt no need to do anything other than to float gratefully in the little cloud of his euphoria. Neither memories nor worries nor guilt could find him here, with the blanket pulled tightly around him and Roy’s voice the only thing to penetrate the lovely haze.

“Hot chocolate?” Roy asked, waltzing back into his office with a steaming mug of the stuff. “No milk. But lots of marshmallows,” he added, and Ed grinned.

“Fuck yeah,” he mumbled, extending both arms out from his blanket sanctuary to accept this new offering. “Thanks,” he remembered to add as the hot mug transferred hands; and Ed clutched it for a moment to his chest for the warmth before taking his first, long draught.

One satisfied exhalation later, and Roy had appropriated the cushion beside his lover, allowing Ed to make himself comfortable against the man’s chest.

“Feeling good?” the general asked, grinning at him; Ed grinned back like a fucking dope, as if it weren’t the most obvious answer ever in all of history.

“Uh-huh,” Ed said, then took another sip.

“Good.” A pause. “Now, you promise never to put yourself in unnecessary danger again? For the sake of my own mental health, if nothing else.”

Ed was silent for a moment, pretending to consider this seriously.

“Mmm,” he finally said, nestling further into the crook of Roy’s arm, “I promise to try. Really hard,” he added, in response to Roy’s arched eyebrow. “That’s as good as you’re gonna get.”

“Ah,” said Roy, his smile turning just a hint wry: he kissed the very top of Edward’s head. Ed wrinkled his nose. “Somehow I thought as much. I guess that will have to do. That’s what I get for taking a lover as recklessly selfless as you, I suppose.”

“You knew what y’were gettin into,” Edward said, his head turned to allow him to breathe in the scent at the join of his lover’s neck and shoulder. The man curved his neck just enough to look at Ed, to allow him to see the soft, wide smile gracing his lips.

“So I did,” Roy said, and kissed him like he’d never stop.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed, please let me know! I crave your feedback -- I hunger for it. Om nom nom nom.


End file.
